Driver Education
by LightSleeper
Summary: For those of us that have went through the tedious horrors of Driver Education, and a melodramatic reference for those who haven’t. First attempt at a two Shot. Complete.
1. Classroom

**DISCLAMER: NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGMENT INTENDED. ALL SETTINGS AND CHARACTERS ARE PROPERTY OF STEPHENIE MEYER. **

Now that that's out of the way.

**Summary: For those of us that have went through the tedious horrors of Driver Education, and a melodramatic reference for those who haven't. This is a two-shot. **

**References/Notes: Twilight was published in 2005, and Edward as well as Alice were both juniors, it would have been Fall 2003 when they were enrolled as freshmen. In Spring 2003 the S60 R's were introduced. I'm excited this works out perfectly with the story timeline. There's some Volvo history in here too, I couldn't resist. In case your wondering, I am going to get a Volvo. . .when I can drive. And no, I never had a driver's ed teacher that opened with a joke, I found the joke and had to throw it in there. **

* * *

**From Edward's Point of View**

I'd have to admit after considering several locations, the sunless town of Forks would suffice for the next four years. After several arguments Alice and I ended up registered as 15 year old freshman, while Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper were enrolled as 16 year old sophomores. We seemed to have fight every time we moved, Alice and I were both tried of playing the younger rolls in an eternal performance. The next time we relocated, Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper were to be enrolled as seniors, with us a year behind them. Alice has seen it, and for that I was glad. I would only be subjected to two years of hell, where at least I could drive to school.

"_Esme will take us to get our permits this afternoon, class starts tomorrow evening_._" _Alice thought.

I gathered up all the necessary paperwork and ambled down the stairs from my new third floor room, gold had not been my first choice, but I had compromised with Esme on the color for good acoustics. When I arrived downstairs, Esme and Alice were both on the couch, watching TV.

"I'm ready whenever you are." I said.

"We'll go right now then." Esme said, always eager to do motherly duties, even if they were _human_ ones.

After starting to rise of the couch, Alice went blank.

"There's a line, every 15 year old child in Forks has got their paperwork today for Driver's Ed," I too could see the tiny bureaucratic office, overwhelmed with pimple-faced teenagers. "If we wait another 15 minutes to leave, thinks should have slowed down by the time we arrive."

Esme went back to the program as Alice went off to gather her paperwork as I trudged over to the piano. It too was a compromise, a new piano if I cooperated with school registration, and I had. I fooled around with a new section of music and penciled in the new notes as well as erased ones that no longer fit until we were ready to leave.

"I assume we are taking my car?" I asked, thinking about it. It was that or Emmett's Jeep. Carlisle, and his Mercedes, were at work. Rosalie had forbidden us all to coming within a foot of her new M3. I wasn't nearly as protective as my Volvo, it was only 6 months old, but I'd wanted another Volvo with an R trim for a long time now. I loved my Volvo 850 T5 R sedan. After 10 or 11 months, the color had to go. Sure there were only 185 of them in the US, but the cream yellow was just plain disgusting. Rosalie only had silver paint at the time, and I told her that would to, anything but yellow. This time around I had them order in a silver one.

"If you don't mind dear," Esme assumed, though she hid it well, her thoughts still practically screamed "_I HATE Emmett's Jeep! One day I'm going to end up stuck in the offloading harness!" _"and no, you do not get to drive Edward. How would that reflect if we pulled up to get your learner permit and they see you driving?" After all these years, I still wonder if it's intuition or she's hiding a gift from us.

When we arrived at the DMV, Alice's vision was true, and were quickly seated across from a female employee. There was only one other student in line, Mike Newton. He was already at the end waiting for his permit to finish being made. An employee reached over the counter and handed him his permit. He had smiled all right, and all the wires of his braces had reflected light as he did so, creating a grey oval glare where his teeth should be.

"_It looks like there's a crystal ball in my mouth." _He mentally sighed. _"I bet he angled the light just because he's jealous he has to work here and we own our own business. This is worse than my 8__th__ grade photo with the glasses glare. At least it's got my weight, 150 pounds of pure muscle!"_

"Is there anyway we can retake this?" Mike asked unhopefully.

"No son, I'm sorry, but hey no one looks good on their license photos." the man confirmed.

I gently nudged Alice as Esme started filling out paperwork. "Check out Newton's photo." I whispered.

"Ha, it looks like there's a crystal ball in his mouth!" she remarked.

"That's what he said." I confirmed as Alice started her vision test. She was then taken down to the other end to get her picture taken as I completed my vision test and was instructed to wait until Alice was done. The attendant came back shortly and she shoved the card in my hand.

"I'm glad most of the myths aren't true. But I really wish we didn't show up in pictures." she stated, disappointed. She pointed to where one spike of her hair stuck out at an odd angle.

"Alice," I sighed, as I bent over to sign my name electronically so it could be etched into the card, "if it bothers you that bad make a new one later." Alice was probably one of the best at foraging documents, only under Carlisle and myself, and it was simply because we'd been doing it longer.

"You may drive now Edward." Esme allowed.

* * *

I sat down at the desk at the end of the last row. Textbooks were already sitting on the desks, and I flipped it open in search of a copyright date. 1998. Sometimes I wondered where school funding ended up. Alice took a seat to my right. I looked around and saw mostly freshmen with a few sophomores in the mix. Jessica Stanley had sat in front of me, and was obnoxiously popping her gum while trying to discreetly send a text message to Lauren two seats in front of her. Mike had sat to the right of Jessica, desperately trying to get her attention, Eric Yorkie was already asleep half way across the room. The one advantage to being human: sleep.

"Hello students, my name is Samuel Rivera, in this course you will learn to be a defensive and responsible drivers under my instruction. This first class is just for an hour. Your in car driving will start shortlyI've been teaching high school driver education for the past 5 years and also taught defensive driving to adults the previous 10 years. This is a rather small class, so I hope to speed through the classroom portion and proceed to in-car learning. " He droned on and on taking about his teaching and driving career and exactly what he was going to cover, twice.

"For those of you who don't know me, I like to start class off with a joke."

He thinks he's a comedian. Lovely.

On that thought, Mr. Rivera started his joke "A man in a Porsche 911 stops at a stoplight and a guy on a scooter pulls up next to him. The guy on the scooter leans over and takes an admiring look at the inside of the Porsche and tells the driver that he has a really hot car. Well, the light turned green so the driver of the Porsche decides to show off and peels out and leaves the guy on the scooter in the dust. Then, all of a sudden, he sees the scooter zip on past him. So, being a little cocky, the Porsche driver floors it again and blows past the guy on the scooter. A few seconds later, he again sees the scooter zip on past him. So now he's a little irate as well as a little miffed that that scooter keeps passing him so he floors it until he is going over 100 mph. He thinks to himself that there would be no way that scooter could catch him now, but then looks in the rearview mirror and sees that scooter starting to catch up. He then decides to find out what that scooter really is and slams on his brakes. Then the scooter crashes into the Porsche. After the dust settled, the Porsche driver sees the scooter driver lying in the road and goes over to him and asks how he could go as fast as the Porsche on a little wimpy scooter... The dying man replied, "I can't really, but my suspenders were caught on your side mirror..."

"_I don't understand why they aren't laughing!" _Mr. Rivera thought. _"That one always kills!"_

Alice leaned over, "Who wears suspenders!? Remind me NEVER to get a Porsche 911!!" she hissed at me.

"Done." I whispered back, and then the fact that I was whispering registered in his thoughts.

"Mr. Cullen is it?" He inquired while staring me down.

"Yes sir, Edward Cullen." I replied.

"I will dismiss you from my class if you are ever rude during one of my jokes ever again. Do you feel like you cannot gain knowledge out of this class?"

"No sir, I feel I can gain knowledge from this course." I bet I could. Lesson One: Never open with a bad joke.

"Everyone please turn in your books to page 6. We will start with the section questions. Mr. Cullen this question is for you."

"_Well this one's not in the book smart ass. I bet he can't name the inventor of the first car." _He clearly didn't enjoy smart ass teenagers. We had something in common.

"Mr. Cullen can you tell me who invented the first car and who constructed it? He asked.

I didn't need a book for this one. I didn't need to read his thoughts. "The first car was designed by Nicholas Joseph Cugnot and constructed by M. Brezin in 1769, however, an Italian man named Guido da Vigevano invented a wind powered vehicle in 1335."

Alice winked at me. Mr. Rivera was awestruck. With that he moved on.

"Correct. The next question is for you Miss Stanley. Question one on page 6 please."

"Ummm. . ." she stammered and popped her gum. "Is it D?"

"Is that your final answer?"

"Ummmm. . . yes?"

"Miss Stanley are you color blind?" he asked, agitated.

"No. . .."

"Miss Stanley if you think a stop sign is brown I'm going to have to ask you to leave my class, but not before you hand over the cell phone. You will be able to make up this session at a later time. Please gather your things."

At the same moment Lauren Mallory's phone started ringing with an obnoxious rap ring tone.

"Miss Mallory I will be confiscating your phone as well. Outside with Miss Stanley. I will be outside to talk to the both of you shortly."

They both strutted out of the room, both completely disgusted that he took their phones.

"Please complete the exercise on a sheet of paper, and I will be failing anyone who puts D down as the answer for #1. You have 15 minutes until the end of class. When you are finished you can leave." He sighed and walked out of the room to attend to Jessica and Lauren.

"Alice please hurry."


	2. In Car

**Notes: I'll admit, I had to search parallel parking to write that part. Oh yes, I've had to do it many times, but basically I go with trial error, none of those fancy steps. (I've only ever hit the curb once.) I'd rather just go find a parking garage a few blocks away and pay 5 or 6 to park there then parallel park. That's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. **

* * *

The past Monday had been one of the longest nights of my existence. The preceding four more nights of poorly drawn diagrams and questions (the ones directed at me, most 15 year olds wouldn't have known if their short lives depended on it) and a precautionary "camping trip" with Alice later, the in-car days had arrived on the following Monday. We were still required to complete class work (which having the upper hand of knowing the lesson plan in advance, had finished) but the majority of the days were over. This evening would harder than any of it. The in-car sessions had started today, and the first group would be returning any minute. Emmett dropped Alice and I off, keeping up with the human charade once again, and then proceeded to drive off in the rain as we stood outside of building one with Mike Newton waiting for Mr. Rivera to arrive with the one car Forks High School owned. After almost fifteen minutes, I began to wonder what had happened to the previous group, driving 4-6pm had went.

"_Yorkie drove in a ditch. They'll be a few more minutes. I'm driving for the first 30 minutes, your driving second for 40 minutes, and Newton driving the last 20. We've knocked off half an hour with his explanation before we leave and them having to call Dowling's to get the one tow truck in Forks to pull them out." Alice thought. _

Mike had also decided to strike up a conversation.

"So who's driving first? To be honest I'm a little nervous." He admitted with a laugh.

"I'll drive first then." Alice said.

"Everybody says that the second driver drives the longest." I had to give my input. "Alice and I have both drove a sufficient amount. If you want you can go last." _Try years. _

"Okay, that sound's cool to me." He replied.

I faintly heard the sound of the engine running, and the headlights streamed around the building. The car had already had much previous damage done to it, the 1999 Pontiac had several colored doors with minor dings, obvious that the school didn't have much money to spend on repairs. The car pulled to a rough stop and the engine cut off as Lauren, Jessica, and Eric got out of the car.

"Sorry we're late guys. I went off the road a little, well, a lot really. We were stuck in a ditch. We had to call a tow truck to pull it out." Eric admitted sheepishly.

"That's okay, Eric, it could have been worse" I said. _You could have totaled the whole car and I could have ran home and had my whole evening back._

As the tow truck three went to meet their parents, Alice and I walked around to our respective doors, with me in the left back seat and her in the drivers seat, and we all piled in.

"The first thing I'll need to see is all of your permits." Mr. Rivera wasn't pleased with the last group having to be towed. The tow had of course came out of the small driver Education fund, of only about 200. Why we'd all payed 250 and we only had 200 in the budget, I'll never know.

After passing our permits back he proceeded to cover where the turn signals, wipers, and headlights were, along with just about everything else. This whole process only took about 15 minutes, but dragged on and on. With that 15 minutes and the 15 minutes of Alice was allowed to start driving.

* * *

Alice's half hour drive was smooth and precise, and she received several compliments to my surprise. She had covered two drives worth of material. It was finally my turn and Alice pulled to the curb to swap seats. I put on my signal, checked the rearview mirror, checked the blind spot, pulled out back onto the road, and corrected the signal.

"Mr. Cullen what did are you doing wrong?" Mr. Rivera asked.

"I don't know, sir."

"You need to check your dash every thirty seconds and then back at the road. Then check your rearview mirror and look back at the road. Never do two things at once. Do you understand Mr. Cullen."

"Yes sir." _No I do not understand sir, I do not understand why your such a cranky old man, I do not understand why you hate me, I do not understand why you must always call me "Mr. Cullen." _

I drove down the road and ever so often he would cover up the rearview mirror and ask me what car was behind me. A green Ford F150, a blue Nissan Maxima. We drove through the rainy streets slowly as he thew question after question at me.

"Mr. Cullen what is the speed limit through here?"

"Forty is the speed limit, but since it's raining I'm going thirty to adjust for conditions."

"What kind of stop is this, Mr. Cullen?"

_I have a name. It's Edward. You seemed to understand that Alice has a first name. _"This is a four way or all way stop, sir."

"What is the proper following distance and how do you measure that, Mr. Cullen?"

"The proper following distance is 2 seconds. You can measure that by watching until the car in front of you passes a stationary object. Then begin your count, one Mississippi, two Mississippi. If you reach the stationary object before your count is over you need to increase following distance." _My Name is Edward and I'm a good driver, damn it. _

I was concentrating on his thoughts so hard, I barely realized the thoughts coming from behind me. "Okay last question, what kind of car is following you this time, Cullen?" _A silver Volvo,_ he thought.

A silver Volvo? I picked up on Esme's thoughts and realized it was my car. "A silver S60 R Volvo." I replied.

"_I hope Edward doesn't mind me borrowing his car again. Well, it's only a few miles, he won't even notice. I could have took the Aston Martin, but I can't go to the grocery in that. But I do have to make an appearance at the grocery. Five teenagers and never buying food would definably blow our cover. I guess I should really get my own car. Oh lord, that's the driver education car. I'm sorry I took your car Edward. It was either yours or Rosalie's again. Carlisle wasn't home again. You know how Rosalie is, if I took her car it would turn into a temper tantrum, and with Emmett out hunting with Jasper it wouldn't stop until he got home. Jasper. He's been trying so hard since they started school. He has to hunt so much. . . "_ I listened until I heard Mr. Rivera's thoughts address me again.

"_That space between the brown van and red sedan looks pretty small. No one could fit in there. There's no way this kid can fit in there. I can't find a thing wrong with him. It's like he's been driving for years! Hell, I couldn't get in this space and I've been driving 40 years! If he hits either one of those car's he'll have to pay for those as well as a new driver education car! If not we can maybe at least get it painted. He's parking here."_

"Okay Cullen, last objective for tonight. Please parallel park between the brown van and red sedan."

I put my signal on and stopped to the side of the brown van. I turned the wheel right and aimed to into the space while looking over my shoulder. I turned the wheel to the left to straighten the tires. I continued backing. I turned the steering wheel to the left to finish backing while looking over my left shoulder, he'd reminded us many times that if they could not see your head moving, they would deduct points. I finished perfectally in the space and put the car in park.

"_Damn, Cullen's good. I wish he would have hit the curb." _Was all he thought, he had been ready to cuss me out for hitting both of the parked cars as well as our own. He rummaged through his mind trying to find some imperfection with the parking job. "Mr. Cullen, that was okay for a first time, but you've got a lot of work to do. How do you know your wheels are straight?"

_I'm over a hundred years old, I've been driving a while. _"I don't sir."

"Well then, proceed to straighten them."

I put the car in drive and took my foot off the brake, waiting to see which way the car rolled. I knew it would roll straight and I wouldn't have to worry about straightening my wheels. But we didn't move. My eyes traced over the interior of the car until I figured out the problem. He had his foot planed firmly on the brake.

_Get your goddamn lead foot off the goddamn brake! _

No, the gentleman Edward Cullen addressed him. "You have your foot on the brake Mr. Rivera."

"I know."

"Well how am I supposed to check if my wheels are straight? You have to take your foot off the brake to see which way the car pulls."

"Wrong. Turn your steering wheel all the way to the right or left and then turn it back one and a half or three quarter turns."

This man could not drive. I did as I was told, and the wheels rested crooked.

"Good Cullen. Mike it's your turn."

With that a large gulp resounded through the car. As I crawled in the back seat next to Alice and buckled my seat belt, Alice whispered.

"This is going to be _bad_. But at least we aren't the ones paying for the damage." she was just barley finished before Mike put the car in what he thought was drive and put his foot on the accelerator. With a sudden jerk we were thrown backwards into the red sedan.

Mr. Rivera could only say one thing. "Newton that was reverse."

And to think we have to have 10 in-car hours.


End file.
